Day 9: Dickenson ND to Hill City Minnesota

Approaching the 100th Meridian

We continued eastward out of Dickinson ND toward Minnesota.  People here are really nice and it's hard to leave.  It is also really quiet and empty here.  Even locals confess that not a lot goes on in these parts.  Ended up spending 45 minutes in a philosophical discussion with the staff of our hotel.  I wish more people did this.  We'd be better people.

As we head east we take few pictures, and try to cover ground.  News came last night that Anita left her boots in Billings, and the only shoe store open for a few hundred miles is in Bismark so we will stop there.  To keep things interesting local artists have erected massive sculptures beckoning the motorist to pause for a few minutes here there, everywhere.  We are never going to get the heck out of this state if we stop at all of them.  Somewhere along this empty part of the Eisenhower Interstate system, we cross into Central Time.  We've been missing these markers in our photographs as they are often designated by very small signs and placed without regard to other obvious geographic boundaries.   Lose another Hour.

I make one exception for a roadside Scenic overlook just outside Bismark.  We are approaching the Missouri river and I'd like to get some perspective on the valley.  This overlook does not disappoint.  in addition to the splendid view it also hosts a small exhibit on the region's natural history.  It appears that we are travelling backward in time, through progressively older and older rock formations.  Far from being flat, there is now a slight dip to the west as crystalline basement rocks get closer and closer to the surface.  We'll see many of these on Day 10.  

Standing there we could feel a refreshing breeze out the northwest.  Temps were in the high 60's.  Air was dry and smelled vaguely of some rare arctic flower I have never seen.  To our South, towering Cumulonimbus were piling up to deluge some location well to our south.  This is the back side of a cold front:  a dome of cold dry air 100's of km across forces the warm moist air from the gulf of Mexico upward.  The upward forcing leads to condensation and latent heat release, powering ongoing cloudbuilding and rainmaking all the way to the top of the troposphere, where the surrounding temps get hotter with elevation.  to see it so vividly was a rare and magical treat

Bismark and crossing the Missouri

Easily the longest tributary of the Mississippi, longer than the main river past their confluence.  THis Missouri drains a good bit of the high plains and has cut a deep valley into the soft sediments over a short frame of time.  Bismark appears to be a small, pleasant, uncrowded city, far away from anything else in the lower 48.   I'm not sure how one gauges relative isolation of cities that are connected by highways, but this one seems extra far away.

We spend about 1 hour in the mall- a relatively empty affair.

this is our first time in a shopping mall since the pandemic hit.  Mask usage is sporadic at best and crowds are minimal.  It's all a bit of sensory overload for me in colors, smells and just people interreacting with one another.  We emerge with a new pair of shoes for Anita and a pair of Rex-Kwon-Do inspired swim trunks for myself.   While I try to avoid picking fights this trip, I am glad to know I now have the proper attire for delivering a roundhouse kick to the face to someone should that be necessary.

As we head east we are running into the land that was overrun by the Laurentide Ice sheet.  The expression you notice here are vast number of lakes and ponds of all sizes, representing locations where the retreating ice stagnated and melted in place as sediments surrounded it.   Indeed there are no fefwer than 8 causeways across these lakes on I-94.  The other expression you see is piles of rocks in the farm fileds.  these are rocks that found their way into the ice and were then transported 100's even 1000's of miles, and laid down by the melting ice.  As these  tend to get in the way of growing crops on a large scale, famers here remove them and place them in convenient piles

The Laurentian divide

About 3/4 of the way across the state we are informed that we have crossed the Laurentian divide.  This separates waters flowing into Hudson bay from those flowing into Gulf if Mexico.   Unlike the Pacific - Atlantic Divide in the Rockies, this one is flat, and likely shifting as the land rebounds from the lost mass of the ice that used to cover it.   One sees many rivers starting out soutbound only to curve back north and head for Canada.  Indeed ND may have the largest proportion of its land and population in areas that drain north of any state in the lower 48.  

We take a well earned break at a rest area, finally grabbing a decent roadmap (we've misplaced a few of these over the trip).  Initially we had hoped to make Lake Itasca- source of the Mississippi.  Now we are shorter on time than hoped and agree to be more direct.  The few minutes of low angle sun and cool breeze on the low prairie are welcome respite.

Remember the Red river valley

Fargo greets us with our first traffic situation since Boise (not a Jam, just heavy and erratic).  The Red River of the North is hard to see from the freeway and barely caught.  We do however find a "weclome center" at which we obtain a map and plot our next course.

In the 40 our so miles of eastbound travel between the outskirts of Fargo and the beginning of lake country we notice a substantial shift in the land vegetation.  Whereas there had been mostly rolling grasslands to our west, the land to the East closes in with increasingly taller and thicker collecitons of pines and other woodland.  It is beginning to feel a bit east.

Great north woods

We are now truly in the land where people speak like characters from the movie "Fargo" and Paul Bunyan statues darken the horizon:  Northern Minnesota and the land of 10,000 lakes.  Like the lakes in neighboring North Dakota, most of these are Kettle lakes in Glacial drift.  Indeed we have not seen any significant rocks since the erratics in the farm fields of ND.    

I have to bite my tongue to refrain from political commentary, except to say some folks here have a lot of time and space to express some strong views to those who drive by.  One of the local issues about which there is much controversy is a planned pipeline through the region.  I know people who got arrested protesting said pipeline last week, now here I am surrounded by the pipelines supporters.   We live in a time of heavy polarization.  It has also been said that refusing to take a side is supporting the "bad guys."  For the record I do have a side that I believe is informed.

 I honestly wish I knew more what they were thinking. In Southern CA we get access to a variety of free media, out here the radios often have only one or two companies providing the news feed.  And Yet telling people this seems ineffective at making the conversation.  I pass as someone who could adhere to a variety of alignments.  This trip I use this to stay out of trouble as I am here to witness and listen (mostly).

We're basically stuck with nothing but Religious stations and Country on the radio for this portion of the drive.  The lakes, when we can see them are beautiful, and for every lake there are many signs directing us to various resorts, cabins and other getaways.  I wonder who it is that comes up here for vacation and how the pandemic affected those plans.  I know we missed out on staying at a state park because reservations needed to me made much farther in advance than we had done, but the park had vacancies.   About 20 minutes out of Hill City, We phone in our orders.  We have been on the road a long time and i keep trying to gettuce to lodging before 7 and failing.

The resort in Hill city is an unusual combination of rustic and sublime.  The owners have put a lot of work into it, though nothing runs like something more corporate.  I think we like that even if it takes some getting used to.  We eat our burgers and watch the sun go down, the trees reflecting its light across the lake.  It is past 9Pm when we finish and still light out.  Even at 10 an eerie yellow flow shines through the trees.  Here everything is quiet except for the howling of the loons and the buzzing of Mosquitoes.